RLS_PHL

I have to travel to Tokyo for business later this month or early August (my work qualifies me for a special exemption to current entrance restrictions). I have been keeping an eye on flights, with the best option looking like PHL-DFW-NRT. When I went to check this week I noticed that only the JAL flight through Boston was showing up as a OW option with economy tix listed at >$3000 one way. When I called AA ExPlat desk, the CS rep said she could see the AA flights, but all remaining seats were at 0.

Should I just assume that 61 has been axed for the summer and just plan to fly on ANA? I hadn't seen any news that AA was cutting international flights.

shd9

Wait until Sunday - AA updates its schedule on Sundays. AFAIK the NRT flights isn’t doing that bad especially up front and especially on days JAL flight don’t operate..

VFR

It looks zeroed out until August 13th, then it comes back.

I'm booked to fly on AA 61 and AA 60 in February, and I just checked those flights and the timing of AA 60 was moved five minutes later. Shame, I was hoping for a schedule change that would let me re-route on JL.

RLS_PHL

If it's zeroed out, does that mean it's been canceled?
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VFR

No, "zeroed out" just means that they won't let any more people buy tickets on it.

Schedule changes happen on the weekend, and sometimes they zero out flights that they are changing to prevent booking errors while a flight is being changed. If it is still zeroed out on Monday, it's more likely that the flight has been cancelled for those dates.

985X

On a side note, you can also considering flying AA to LAX then SQ. SQ operates daily LAX-NRT-SIN flights and the experience is as good as ANA.

VFR

If you want to book it on one ticket, SQ's fares usually only allow AS, B6, or UA for the domestic connection.

hp12c

Curious why are they not doing too badly? Are there enough Japanese citizens flying back to support the flight?

xliioper

DL has been zeroing out all inventory on many of it's HND and PVG flights (or zeroing out all but J bucket) for a number of weeks now including many of their July flights. This typically means that they are planning on making schedule changes and cancelling flights. But there have been no schedule changes loaded and the flights have continued to operate as scheduled. I'm booked on DL HND flights in August and my outbound flight has been completely zeroed out for awhile but the flight has not been cancelled. The seatmap shows the flight to be almost entirely empty in all classes. My sense is that they have had so many people cancelling their tickets that they are just blocking out bookings and are content to continue to operate these flights largely empty just for cargo. I'm planning on cancelling my flights next week as it seems pretty clear that Japan will not be opening for tourists in August.

hp12c

My end of August AA DFW-NRT has only 7 seats taken in the 30-seat J cabin. My family is 4 of those seats, and we will also end up canceling closer to departure, assuming that Japan doesn’t open up to tourists by then. I agree with you, it’s all but guaranteed that they’re not opening, but one can hope!

ISTFlyer

A reminder that Japan still requires quarantine for all arrivals and travel is restricted to citizens/residents of Japan and some other exceptions.
It might not be feasible to maintain multiple daily flights to Japan for the meanwhile.

As JAL and American are joint business partners, it might make sense to hand all operations to JAL which have a crew base in Japan.

shd9

that I am not very sure - some reasons I can think of:

1. There are quite a bit of Japanese companies based on the DFW region (Toyota for example), so there might be Japanese employees traveling for work. Biz/Prem Econ being heavily booked suggests some sort of corporate travel in this age when coach is usually empty.

2. DFW has historically been used as a connecting hub for some of the Japanese diaspora in South America like Brazil, so there might be more connecting traffic than from just the US.

Intl359Widget

1 & 2: That might be but as of right now there are no Foreign Nationals allowed in the US whether they’re transiting onward to a third country or entering the United States unless they have the appropriate eligibility to do so.

This doesn’t just impact AA but all operators into and out of the United States. So there is little “demand” that is allowed to be on these flights and add in Japan entry restrictions so these flights are mostly operating for cargo or higher yielding traffic that typically “subsidizes” the lower yielding traffic.

ISTFlyer

To clarify, many foreigners could still enter the USA as tourists without any legitimate reason including those arriving from Japan. There is no blanket ban for foreigners into the USA. Only people arriving from countries listed on the Presidential Proclamation's should have a legitimate valid reason or be a US citizen/resident. Other than China and Iran, no other Asian country is listed in these proclamations.

So a Japanese citizen could fly to the US for no-purpose and just for tourism or just for transferring to a third country.

However, the reason why this routes are empty is that Asian countries ( such as Japan, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Thailand, etc... ) have hotel quarantines upon arrival thus people from these countries without any legitimate reason don't come to the US at this time.

shd9

Looking into this a bit further... it seems that might have something to do with some Japan Arrival quota. If you search for a through trip with a final destination outside Japan (even the second leg on JAL/CX), AA60 is available for sale before 13Aug. Olympics?